Thomas Lisle

United Kingdom

Thomas Lisle is a British artist based in London. He started making glitch videos in the style of paintings in the early 1980s and pioneered the genre. Recently, Thomas’s works have been related to painting and the idea of progressing paintings in the digital age, time-based paintings and painting in 3D. He has had several solo exhibitions, mostly in London, and some of his works are featured in the collections of the Tate Modern and Museum of Modern Art. 

Thomas’s work combines abstract forms, figurative, simulated liquids, simulated brush strokes, and complex programmed events. His work responds to colour, form and motion in ways only possible with 3D animation and simulation techniques to make dynamic, dramatic and thought-provoking art. He draws inspiration from nature, psychology, comparative philosophy and the past and present history of painting.


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Melting

Melting is about the gentle break up of the snow and the paint and its fluidness. The red/pink paint starts to look like molten lava, and the blue/purple paint is something cold and tar-like. It's a work about contrasts and how very different elements can make a visual composition that has some kind of harmony.

 

The snow forms in this artwork were created by painting curving and flowing shapes in 3D and then building invisible shapes which are slowly shifting, a bit like leaves or boughs bending under the weight of the snow, to allow the snow to fall, to make an ever-shifting and changing background to the 3D paintings. The red paint painting elements are also made by physically painting with a tablet pen in 3D, and in contrast to the snow the paintings are in zero gravity and have virtual forces pushing the liquid to break apart and form abstract forms of paint. So, it's the paint that is visually melting rather than the snow. The paintings start as a painting but evolving in deformed abstracted melted paint, which retains a memory of its original self. 

 

The paint and the snow are both deconstructing, but in this artwork, melting means forming new forms and taking on new possibilities, which in themselves are more interesting and meaningful and lead to a more dynamic and visually interesting artwork. 

 

A woodcut block print is not technically a painting; the original composition might be based on a painting, but the marks made in the wood are cut and copy a predefined composition. These digital works, in some ways, reverse the process in the way the paint starts off as definable paint and transforms into an expressive liquid, the opposite of a painting being set in concrete (wood).

technique

3d

format

portrait

duration

00:58

year

2024

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